Analysis: Absolutely illegal

By Amos Harel

Haaretz

Kislev 10, 5765

There have been dozens of cases during the past
four years in which IDF soldiers killed unarmed Palestinian civilians. The
circumstances are different from case to case, and in many cases the army
provided detailed explanations for the shootings, even if in retrospect
the judgment was wrong. Only rarely is the curtain completely lifted on
what really took place so that someone who was not there can understand
what happened. The leak last night to Channel Two's Fact program, of the
tape from the communications radios at the Girit outpost on the
Philadelphi corridor provides such an opportunity.

The legal
proceedings have only begun, but based on what the tape showed and the
indictment against the Givati company commander R. claims, it is possible
to cautiously draw a few interim conclusions.

Most of the debate
about the incident was over whether the killing of the little girl was
"verified," and the debate was based on the conflicting versions of the
events as provided by R. and his troops. Last night the tape left no room
for doubt - R. himself is heard saying, "I also verified her
killing."

But that is far from the key question in the case. At
least from the moral aspect, the main question is why the company
commander and his soldiers fired at the girl who was 100 meters away from
the outpost, was not armed, was not a danger to the soldiers inside the
protected outpost, and when at least some of the soldiers knew that it was
a little girl. A soldiers is explicitly heard saying "it's a little girl,"
and that she is "scared to death." Nonetheless, the shooting went on.
Moreover, R. himself reports later that he shot "the girl."

No less
important is the tone of the voices on the tape. Officers trying to
explain what happened constantly said that the areas is dangerous, and
that the soldiers were under threat. But that does not come across in the
voices of the soldiers. They don't sound worried or pressured, but almost
apathetic. They seem to be shooting because those are the orders - to
shoot at anyone who comes close, even if some know it's only a girl, and
there is no sense of fear. It seems, at least, that the order to shoot is
blatantly illegal, and therefore the soldiers should have refused it. The
question becomes, therefore, why only the company commander is being
prosecuted, and only for illegal use of his weapon and not for
manslaughter at the very least.

The Girit affair was one of the
reasons for the tension between Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon and the
deposed regional commander, Brig. Gen. Shmuel Zakai, who completely
accepted the company commander's version of events, persuading Ya'alon to
do as well - and then Ya'alon was embarrassed when the Military Police
probe discovered a completely different reality.

Now it turns out
the original corps level inquiry into the event did not even listen to the
communications recordings, which were easily available. If they had, the
entire fiasco of the original backing for the company commander could have
been avoided. The affair raises questions about the way the IDF
investigated other cases of Palestinians being killed.

One
prevalent view in the media is that it is impossible to judge the behavior
of the soldiers in these cases given the dangerous conditions under which
they operate. But that is a dubious argument at best since it has
gradually turned into the legitimization of worsening incidents over the
years. It's convenient for the IDF to call R. a "rotten apple," but in
effect, Iman al Hamas, the little girl killed at Girit, is not alone.
There have been dozens of innocents killed in Gaza, under circumstances
not much different from those in which she was killed.

During the
first two years of the intifada, the rules of engagement allowed shooting
at civilians simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong
time, like near a settlement fence, or at night. Since then, the army has
tried to crack down, and has toughened the rules of engagement. But there
are plenty of hair-raising stories about what happened to civilians during
offenses like Operation Rainbow and Operation Days of
Penitence.

The first intifada saw Givati trials one and two, which
opened the pandora's box for the Israeli public about what soldiers were
doing in their name in the territories. If R. insists on going through
with his defense and does not work out a plea bargain with the military
prosecution, it is entirely possible that this case will yet open the
pandora's box to the public about what the army did in its name during the
intifada.